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for the majority of healthy college kids the flu would be much worst

Yes, a person in that age group is far more likely to die of the flu than covid. They are also individually more likely to die driving to campus, alcohol poisoning, drug overdose, murder and suicide.

And they are every bit as effective at spreading this easily transmissible virus to people with much higher morbidity as anyone else.

The asymptomatic nature of this is one of the reasons it is so hard to contain. So passing among people who are more likely to remain asymptomatic (while passing it to others) is part of the problem, not the solution.

I would say that linemen would probably be considered to have comorbid conditions, because although they're in good health, they are clinically obese.

This might be incorrect.  

I manage the Healthcare where I work and at one point we were looking at basing the percentage that employees pay on whether or not the employee was a smoker and/or obese.  

There are a couple of employees here who are gym-rat type workout fanatics.  They are in excellent shape but they are technically obese if you simply look at the height/weight chart because these guys are so muscular that the muscle weighs enough to put them WAY over the weight to be considered "obese".  

When we were looking at that they brought me an alternative that used a dunk tank to calculate the percentage of body fat.  The point being that a "typical" American man who is 5' 9" and 220 pounds is seriously overweight.  However my gym-rat workout fanatic was 5' 9" and 220 lbs and had a minimal amount of body fat and using the percentage of body fat method he was clearly NOT obese.  My guess is that all of the DL and most of the OL would also have a low enough percentage of body fat to not be considered obese.  

Side note:
I actually liked the obese surcharge more than the smoker surcharge because I think it would have been MUCH more effective at encouraging healthy lifestyles.  

Smoking surcharge:
Have you ever read the way this question is usually phrased?  It sounds like the McCarthy hearings where they asked "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"  The smoker question typically is phrased as follows:
"Have you used any tobacco product within the last twelve months?"

I have several issues with that.  First, a guy who smokes cigars a few times a year isn't actually costing us anything on the healthcare.  A couple cigars a year aren't a problem.  

More importantly this provides little-or-no motivation to quit because the payoff is so far away.  If you are a smoker you have to quit, then wait a year, then you get a break on your healthcare.  I just don't think that feels very tangible to the smoker because it is so far away.  

Unfortunately, with smoking, there isn't a good way to measure and enforce an incremental charge.  Ie, assume the percentage for non-smokers is 25% then you could have increments of:

• Somebody who smokes a few times a year pays 27%
• Somebody who smokes up to 1/2 a pack a day pays 30%
• Somebody who smokes a pack a day pays 35%
• Somebody who smokes a pack and a half a day pays 40%
• Somebody who smokes two or more packs a day pays 45%

There isn't any good way to police that.  All your smokers could just claim that they are only occasional or 1/2 pack a day smokers and pay 27% or 30%.  

Back to motivation for a minute.  I quit smoking a few years ago.  When I started a pack was well under $2.  You only paid $2 if you ran out at a concert or something.  I remember when I was at Ohio State there was a store across the street from my dorm that sold pizza, beer, and cigarettes.  They were open really late and even they only charged $2/pack.  I quit buying them and started rolling my own when the taxes pushed it over $3/pack.  The last time I bought a pack I think it was $5 (I had run out of pre-rolled and didn't have time to roll more).  At this point a pack-a-day smoker is paying ~$2k/yr for smokes.  H/she already has a $2k/yr motivation to quit and that one is immediate.  Quit (or even just cut back) and start saving money immediately.  A few dollars off on healthcare that you will not actually get until you are a full year clear isn't going to move the needle for them.  

Obesity surcharge:
This works much better incrementally and therefore provides a great tangible motivation for people.  The model I was advocating would have used a baseline when we started.  If you were overweight then each year going forward you would pay:

• 25% if you were no longer overweight.  
• 27% if you lost at least 75% of the amount by which you had been overweight.  
• 30% if you lost at least 50% of the amount by which you had been overweight.  
• 35% if you lost at least 25% of the amount by which you had been overweight.  
• 40% if you neither gained nor lost more than 25% of the amount by which you had been overweight.  
• 45% if you gained more than 25% of the amount by which you were previously overweight.  

Ok, this might make more sense with an example.  I'm 6-2 and I currently weigh 226 lbs.  The CDC says I should weigh 186 lbs so I'm overweight by 40 pounds (226-186=40).  Thus, 25% of the amount by which I am overweight is 10 pounds.  

• If I get down to 186 lbs by next year I pay 25%
• If I get down to 195 next year I pay 27%
• If I get down to 205 next year I pay 30%
• If I get down to 215 next year I pay 35%
• If stay between 216 and 235 next year I pay 40%
• If I weigh more than 235 next year I pay 45%

I REALLY like this idea.  It creates a tangible and achievable goal for every employee.  

Another example:
I had an employee (he recently finally retired after milking BWC for all of his weight-related injuries for YEARS) who was morbidly obese.  He is about my height so we'll say 6-2 but he probably weighs 400+ so call it 402 lbs.  Even for him, there would be achievable goals.  Using my proposal above, he would be overweight by 214 lbs (402-186=216).  Thus, 25% of the amount by which he is overweight is 54 pounds:

• If he gets down to 186 lbs next year he pays 25% (lose 216#)
• If he gets down to 240 lbs next year he pays 27% (lose 162#)
• If he gets down to 294 lbs next year he pays 30% (lose 108#)
• If he gets down to 348 lbs next year he pays 35% (lose 54#)
• If he stays between 349 and 456 lbs next year he pays 40%
• If he weighs more than 456 lbs next year he pays 45%

My point is that if I told this 400# guy that he'd get a break on his healthcare if he got down to 186# that would provide literally zero motivation.  I might as well tell him that we'll give him a break if he jumps over the moon.  However, even for a guy THAT obese, losing 25% of the excess in a year is a plausibly achievable goal.  Look, I understand that 54 lbs is a LOT of weight to lose in a year and for a guy my size it would be nearly impossible but for a guy who starts out at 400+ that is achievable.  

This might be incorrect. 

I manage the Healthcare where I work and at one point we were looking at basing the percentage that employees pay on whether or not the employee was a smoker and/or obese. 

There are a couple of employees here who are gym-rat type workout fanatics.  They are in excellent shape but they are technically obese if you simply look at the height/weight chart because these guys are so muscular that the muscle weighs enough to put them WAY over the weight to be considered "obese". 

When we were looking at that they brought me an alternative that used a dunk tank to calculate the percentage of body fat.  The point being that a "typical" American man who is 5' 9" and 220 pounds is seriously overweight.  However my gym-rat workout fanatic was 5' 9" and 220 lbs and had a minimal amount of body fat and using the percentage of body fat method he was clearly NOT obese.  My guess is that all of the DL and most of the OL would also have a low enough percentage of body fat to not be considered obese. 

I get this... This is one of those things that is personal to me. I'm 6'5" and 265#, which technically puts my BMI at obese. But I've got a 38" waist, and generally the other thing about male health is that you want a <40" waist. The problem is [although I'm no gym rat] that I just have far more muscle mass than average. 

That said, what we don't know at this point about COVID is whether it cares whether all that mass is muscle or fat. I hadn't heard about any comorbid conditions for the Indiana lineman other than just being enormous. There are some issues from obesity that are size-related, not body fat % related. 

So I don't really know if linemen are "protected" by the fact that they're athletes or not. None of us really know, because people who are that large but also in that great of shape are a very small population. 

over 5 million confirmed cases in the USA with 167,000 deaths

almost 21 million cases worldwide

you'd think we might have a decent idea by now if obesity or smoking or other things were a big problem

we seem to know w/o a doubt that being over 65 or 70 years old is a problem

Honestly, folks, some decisions need to be made at the organizational (in some cases that means governmental) level. That doesn't mean we don't believe in personal responsibility, that means we know that individual decisions impact others, too, and impact others' autonomy.

There are lots of examples of this that no one seems to disagree with. Focusing on football, who makes the rules for the competition? The league, not the individual participants. The individuals participate one way or another, but don't make personal decisions. The individuals choose whether to comply with them, but in so doing, among the sanctions, they risk being kicked out.

The societal version of that is prison. We make lots of rules about what "the people" can do that no one questions as "personal responsibility" issues. To HB's comment, the government always has and always will make decisions about what other people can do--as do the directors of athletic leagues.

There is always debate about just how much the government should regulate activities--that is, and always will be, a fundamental debate in a democracy (including a democratic republic). And in the present day both major political parties (and even the libertarians) advocate for policies that they favor that infringe on "personal rights" the other side (or sides) feel are sacred. 

That's what's wrong with the, "what ever happened to personal responsibility" question. It basically applies to every organizational decision someone doesn't agree with. It's basically meaningless.

Utee, I agree with most of what I see you say around here, and I know you can take a little criticism, so here it is: that's a silly response in this situation.

Sure, at some point there are questions that probably most of us would agree are personal decisions (taking an extreme, which toothpaste we choose to use...or even if we choose to brush our teeth), but questions like how to participate in a sports league during a global pandemic hardly fall into the "what about personal responsibility" category. Disagreeing with the voters (in this case the B1G board) doesn't mean they don't believe in personal responsibility, it means they weighted the risks and benefits differently than you did. To pretend there is no real risk here flies in the face of what we know--and as importantly at this moment in time--what we don't know, which is a lot.

As true today as it ever has been. 


So let's all be personally responsible for not flaming these message boards with a bunch of political tripe.